I know Peas means well...but I respectfully disagree. I don't think you sound very balanced in your reply. I do think you sound reactive, Clouded.

I don't mean that as harsh criticism, only as an observation...and I assume that since you are posting about this on a public forum, that you are open to feedback. If you are not receptive, and only want to vent here...tell me that is what you want and I will withold any further impressions or suggestions. You are steering the ship.

(If you are not open to feedback do not read the following. And this is my unprofessional take, fwiw. I am not a trained therapist!).

Seems you just don't realize that strategizing about how to live with and tolerate an intolerable situation is not balanced. And a life of ducking and dodging is indeed, reactive. You don't realize that turning to youtube videos is a knee-jerk reaction, not an effective response to something of this gravity. You say you live with and see your father every day...and don't seem to realize there are other options for where you live and who you see every day. You are reacting from what you know...not responding to what you need. I think a good therapist could help you see and explore other options and vistas.

Bluntly put---things could be better, Clouded, and you deserve better. Do you see that you could reach out for something to assist your development and growth?

You say you just want your dad to control himself...but the only person you can have any control over is you. That may seem quite unfair. He is the one with the problem. I know. Your dad needs help too...but is he receptive to getting help? Your mom could no doubt benefit from some support, but is she reaching out? They choose to live with the status quo, but you do not have to.

As you tiptoe around your house anxiously adjusting your clothes and your actions in an effort to coexist with your father, you squander your energy and undermine your health, happiness and freedom. Healthy, happy and free just don't fit with the rest of this picture.

But if you stay in this house and things get out of hand (& neither you nor your mother know what your father is capable of, really) you can dial 911, as I said earlier. That is a "worst case scenario" resource. But I have hope that you will choose to go way beyond living on the brink of such madness. Sorry if I sound harsh, Clouded. You are certainly free to ignore any or all that I've said. (Beauty of the internet!).

Clouded wrote:It's because I'm used to my dad's obsession with sex and lust for the female body. I just don't like to be reminded of that and when it's targeted at me, I feel a mixture of anxiety, confusion, shame and disgust. Whatever it is, it's a terrible feeling, much worse than the feelings that arise when he is violent towards me. I just don't want to deal with things like this in my life. How am I supposed to react when these things happen? I can make things more awkward if I accuse him of abusing me right on the spot which is something that I would say to a stranger, but not to my father because I live with him and see him every day.

This is why it's important to take everybody's opinions on what to do with a grain of salt. Also, there are pain bodies like you wouldn't believe in this area of suffering.

Clouded wrote:I also find it strange that none of the gurus which I watch on youtube speak about sexual abuse. I think that sexual abuse triggers a lot of suffering in the mind, especially when it happens between you and someone you should trust.

You are right. But lets examine that fact.

Spiritual teachers are about pointing us in the right direction. Path of least resistence says the right direction is to make space around our thoughts and emotions, slowly at first, to allow awakening. Once awakened, tough topics can truly be seen for what they are, without the direct help of a guru or teacher.

“If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences. No excuses. No negativity. No psychic pollution. Keep your inner space clear.

If you take any action leaving or changing your situation drop the negativity first, if at all possible. Action arising out of insight into what is required is more effective than action arising out of negativity.

Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it's no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing. Is fear preventing you from taking action? Acknowledge the fear, watch it, take your attention into it, be fully present with it. Doing so cuts the link between the fear and your thinking. Don't let the fear rise up into your mind. Use the power of the Now. Fear cannot prevail against it."

I think the advice is sound and sane, it's not the book that Peas is offering, but the wisdom within the passage.

- there is no way that 'accept' is a healthy and viable option in situations of disrespect of boundaries, so one is left with change, or remove oneself from the situation.

But in order to do this one needs to separate a few of the things out, which is what a professional would do if you would only have the courage and the conviction to seek one out Clouded. Doing what you've always done is only going to get you what you've always got. Something has to change, and only you can do that.

1. Safety first - and while your father's behaviours are inappropriate and unappreciated by you, for the most part they are not about you - you may wish that he would change all you want, it's not going to happen, so you can only decide and respond to what you would like to limit in your experience.
Eg:

he (always) finds a way to feel my body (waist, hip, leg, chest), kiss me (he rarely kisses me when I'm covered) or make a comment about parts of my body and these things make me want to cry and vomit.

Then don't participate and make it clear that this is not acceptable to you any more.

Honesty Clouded - honesty brings its own power.
Here we teach children as young as three to express their boundaries - 'From my head to my toes, I say what goes!' And they do it with absolute gusto!! We also teach them to tell a trusted adult, and if they don't do something about it to ensure it does not happen again, then tell another, and another and another until someone does ensure their safety. All the way up to call the emergency number if they are unable to feel safe in an environment.

As an adult it's the same thing - handle what you can yourself, seek support if you need it, scream for help when necessary.

Whether you feel confident enough to bring it up calmly as a declaration of who you are - eg 'Dad, you know when you did / do ... whatever... I feel uncomfortable, so I want you to respect my boundaries and I will let you know where they are from now on. I love you, (if that's true) I just want to have a more comfortable relationship with you.'

Then DO IT - if he says or does something in your presence that makes you feel uncomfortable then simply say "I am uncomfortable with ..... state it'.

He then has the same three options that you have, accept, change, remove. And then in response you again have the same three options.
This is the stuff of true respectful relating and negotiating boundaries.
The past is over this is NOW!

You are not that confused little five year old girl any more - you are not five and you are not confused, you have greater awareness and capacity - you know that physical stimulation creates physical pleasure and this is just fine, you know that society deems some pleasures as appropriate and some not in different cultures and situations and relationships - you had no capacity to control any of that.

We all respond to what is according to our awareness, capacity and willingness.
It happened, it's not happening now.

Others are not that teenager.
You may still fall to remembering the feeling of pleasure then fear and shame when you notice others considering your physical body but you realise that it is also a vehicle of pleasure - you like it and can have confident fun with it in private... so they are only expressing the same, but you are so much more than this - and there is no thing wrong with you feeling good about your body, or any of the sensations of it.

Thankfully these days kids are being taught from a young age that they own their bodies more than they were but ultimately you have the right to not be touched (you can't stop someone looking or thinking that's not your business) but if someone says or does something to you that you are uncomfortable with you can respond.

Your Dad is not that horny and opportunistic teenager who physically took advantage of your youth and innocence.

No amount of excuses is going to change anything, but it also easier to suggest things than implement them.

I also agree with Peas that the 'pain body' of feeling shame at our body image, and any attention to it can get mixed up in the confusions. While it's difficult not to judge parent's relationships it too is not our business. Those participants have the same three choices (accept, change, remove) and they will choose them based on their awareness, capacity and willingness.

You have grown in awareness and in capacity Clouded... the rest is all about your willingness - it's where the excuses come from when solutions or pathways are suggested - no choice is wrong, but you are making choices - and each choice will bring a different experience. If you want a different experience, then you need to make different choices.

These absolutely can be made in love and compassion and clarity and awareness.

The choice is always going to be yours Clouded, there is no white knight going to ride up on a white horse, that's a fairy tale.

Other 'positive' changes can also be for your self and your body - things like taking up a martial art (double benefit!!), or yoga, or physical exercise, or tai chi . These activities do two things, balance awareness of body and environment interaction, and strengthen confidence in physical responses. Martial arts are especially helpful particularly those like tai kwon do that are based and steeped in respect for self and other.

Peas, it is not the advice or the passage in the book that you offered that is dangerous. I know you are trying to point Clouded to some helpful ideas. But turning to a book at this juncture does not approach matters with the immediacy called for. Sooner, rather than later, my hope is that Clouded will be in a place that is safe & secure, where she can sip tea and read great philosophy in a supportive, relaxed and life-affirming environment. But that's not where she is right now.

Our support won't rescue Clouded. I agree. She must stand on her own two feet and make the journey to wholeness, and indeed, that is an inside job. But, she doesn't have to do it alone.

rideforever wrote:Clouded--You keep safe, and if there is anything that we can do just ask, Treasure or myself and others would be happy to do what we can.

I am always open to feedback whether it be positive or negative, maybe it can help me see my situation more clearly.

Financially speaking, I rely on my father. He paid for my tuition and will continue paying if my portfolio is good enough to get me accepted into the program I want to enroll myself into. If my parents ever got divorced and I decided to no longer keep contact with my father, my mom couldn't afford to send me back to university on her own. Simply put, I need his money to get the education I need and therefore, I have to maintain a good relationship with him, otherwise he wouldn't pay for me because it's his money, his choice. Also, a part of me doesn't want to leave the luxury of my house. I have all my things there and they couldn't all fit in a smaller room with other people and I don't want to give up the stuff I own if I were to get away from him. I'm pretty sure that I can't bring my grand piano with me or my queen sized bed. I guess that makes me a materialist. I just don't want my quality of living to change, I have all the comfort and food I need. I realize that using my dad for his money makes me a greedy person. I just don't want to struggle with money and comfort, and this is also one of the reasons why I'm reluctant to move out of my parents' house but in the meantime I want to assert my Independence.

My dad is kinda of a narcissist; he believes that there's nothing wrong with his impulsive behaviors, that me and my mom are the ones who are mentally ill and are ruining his life. Knowing him, he would never accept to receive therapy. My mom never decided to reach out to a professional for the way that she is being treated by him, maybe it's because she doesn't want to complicate their relationship and get him into trouble. My dad does have a criminal folder though; he once slammed my mom in the face with his palm and burst her eardrum and she called the police and he was taken to prison but a friend of his bailed him out. I locked myself in my room when his violent outburst started until he was taken away by a policeman but I heard everything and I remember him calling us at home and asked my mom to pass me the phone and it was the only time in my life when I heard him cry and I felt extremely bad for him. As much as I dislike some of his behaviors, I still love him and I would be depressed if I never got to see him again. I know I have depicted an awful image of him on this forum, but he's not always like that. We do get along, we laugh, we have interesting conversations, he helps me when he can, we hug and I sit on his lap like father and daughter, we make fun of each other in playful ways and he can be very generous and caring when he wants to. Sometimes, I just need to stay out of his way and I'm okay with living like that. Sure it would be nice to feel comfortable in a dress, in short jeans or in a bathing suit when my dad is around without fearing him getting too close to me and do things that send a red flag to my mind but it's not a big deal, I don't dress like that very often anyway. I wish he was into my mother more than any other woman. In all my years, I have never seen them kiss on the lips. I rarely see them show affection to one another and most of the time it's forced because it's Valentine's day or their birthday or their wedding anniversary. I'd love them to be like older couples who walk together holding hands, when elders do it, it's the cutest thing to me. I wish their relationship was like that, I wish that they were romantically and sexually interested in each other only. I wish they went on dates and spent more time together, it saddens me that they're not like that, I want my parents to love each other and to stop fighting, I wanted that since I was little because I was the one who came between them and pleaded them to stop being angry at each other and they would stop for me because I was so young. This does not work anymore.

I don't want to talk to my dad about this because I'm afraid that his reply will be something that I do not want to hear. I remember once complaining to him that my bathroom window was too close to my toilet and that my mom won't stop opening the blinds and I always have to close them otherwise people can see me doing my business at night if the light is on and he told me that every woman should be happy when someone is peeking at them as if I should take this as a compliment. I'd rather not know his point of view. Haha, I actually took taekwondo classes when I was little, I didn't get farther than the white belt though. I think I have enough body awareness, I am training to compete in a marathon this year. I tried applying the power of now after this incident happened and it didn't help much. I knew that what just happened was now in the past, so it only existed in my memory and I could pretend that it never happened because the past is not in the now and only the now is real but the fact that it did happen recently bothered me because it was fresh in my memory and it still felt real. I think it's true when they say that time heals all wounds, now it doesn't feel as bad as it did.

Thank you all for the support. It's always nice to know that people care about you and want to help you.

"If you want to know what your were like in the past, look at your body today. If you want to know what your body will be like in the future, look at your thoughts today." -Deepak

Clouded wrote: ...nice to know that people care about you and want to help you.

Yes, sweetheart. People here care about you and want to help you. But you need to care about you and want to help you! As Jen pointed out, it may take "courage and conviction" to make that call to get help, but if you are going to stay put in your family home, and it sounds like you are...getting pro help is even more vital, imho. And being a person of modest financial means is not a barrier to getting help. I know of places where they will even pick clients up or give them bus fare. There are resources out there. Even if your father miraculously "recovers" and poses no further threat to you, you still have very challenging family dynamics. Support, some counseling, would help you create a better life for yourself.

Clouded, I pray that you will find a good counselor to offer you guidance, support and wisdom. I pray that you are safe now and always, and that you know peace and comfort, strength and courage. I pray for your parents, that they find healing, truth and clarity...that light is brought out of darkness.

Thank you for your prayer, Treasure. I just want you to know that even if I love my father dearly, I would rather get him into trouble with the law and have him sort his own problems than let him REALLY take advantage of me (knock on wood). Hopefully my toxic relationship with my family will be mended someday, if not, I hope to learn to not let the past haunt me. Thank you again for coming to this forum.

"If you want to know what your were like in the past, look at your body today. If you want to know what your body will be like in the future, look at your thoughts today." -Deepak

I have to say I think some of you were a little hard on peas re the PON quote. First of all, the quote was ET's, and this is an ET forum. More importantly, I thought the advice was spot-on, and so does everyone posting here--everyone is encouraging Clouded to do what is in that ET passage: take some kind of decisive action. At minimum draw a line in the sand about your father's behavior. It occurs to me that once you have identified a problem, if you don't take action part of you is actually saying, "maybe it's not such a problem after all." I also liked the part in the quote about taking action, any action. Often in a scary situation we become paralyzed with the fear we will choose the wrong action, so we do nothing. Better to do something, and if that doesn't work try something else.

I also wanted to caution you about depending on your mother Clouded. I mentioned before that I know some women who were molested by their fathers. One told her mother, and her mother called her husband into the room and confronted him, right there in front of the 12-year-old girl. Of course he denied it, and as far as the mother was concerned that ended it. But how could she not have been aware he was sneaking around to the daughters' rooms in the night (yes it was more than one)? Mothers have conflicted allegiances (some do anyway)--this mother chose her marriage over the safety of her daughters. It happens. Something you said in one of your last posts Clouded made me think your mother might be like this ("My mom never decided to reach out to a professional for the way that she is being treated by him, maybe it's because she doesn't want to complicate their relationship and get him into trouble.").

For now, I feel most comfortable pretending that this issue does not exist. I'm scared that if I do anything about it, it will make things even more tense between the three of us and I don't want to feel responsible for the consequences that can happen to my dad but thankfully he never dared to touch me in places where that teenager did. I just don't want a drastic change in my life, I'm terrible at adjusting to change, the idea of change stresses me a lot. I don't know if i'll ever discuss this with my dad, I don't know if I prefer to do this alone or with my mom, I don't even want to think about it for now.

I think my mom would put my safety first, but not her safety first. I know that she lies to doctors about how she got a certain physical pain (instead of saying that her husband beat her, she'd say that she fell off the stairs or something). Like I said, I don't know why they're still living together if they don't get along, my mom could have left him a long time ago but she still chooses to stay here with him. She also told me to notify her if anything else happens and she's glad that I confided in her. I don't want her to confront my dad while I'm still at home, I don't want to participate in this.

"If you want to know what your were like in the past, look at your body today. If you want to know what your body will be like in the future, look at your thoughts today." -Deepak

I also find it strange that none of the gurus which I watch on youtube speak about sexual abuse. I think that sexual abuse triggers a lot of suffering in the mind, especially when it happens between you and someone you should trust.

You have not searched inside enough:-). I remember Byron Katie walked through with someone who was sexually abused many times in her childhood in loving what is and it was brilliant. You have all the answers to anything and everything inside,

Sex abuse itself doesn't belong to anyone. If your mind thinks there is an abuser and the abused, and you put yourself in the abused role, you are suffering tremendously. Also the abuser probably suffers ever more inside; they dare not to look, at this moment, but eventually it will come up if they still are ego-minded. It sounds quite messy, but all these suffering is necessary for you/it to awake. That's how far 'it' goes to wake 'itself' up. You are so so far ahead of general population because of all these suffering. I remember Eckhart Tolle put it as suffering of the cross in his book.

Clouded wrote: I just don't want a drastic change in my life, I'm terrible at adjusting to change, the idea of change stresses me a lot. I don't know if i'll ever discuss this with my dad, I don't know if I prefer to do this alone or with my mom, I don't even want to think about it for now.

Hi Clouded,

I discover this discussion just now as someone reactivated it by posting a new message ...

I would like to introduce a new perspective on your situation ... thinking about Byron Katie's turnarounds ... ie. reversing what others do to you as what you do to others ...

What about saying that in a way or another, and probably unconsciously, you have 'attracted' this situation ... of course this is unconscious and you will deny this idea with your rational (conscious) mind ... but maybe you could look at this from this new perspective ?

What could be the reasons for you to 'attract' such a dreadful situation ? You also said "I just don't want a drastic change in my life ..." ... are you ready for a change ? seems not ...

Only you could answer this question Clouded ...

"What irritates us about others is an opportunity to learn on ourselves"
(Carl Jung)